Boyle's best by far

Rating: 7/10 (20 January 2013)

Despite the clichés, this is a fairly effective and gripping thriller from TRAINSPOTTING's Danny Boyle, an edgy film with enough ambiance and shocks to make it worthwhile. Although working on a noticeable low budget (the scene with the car driving past those superimposed air turbines is laughable), Boyle creates an authentic and gritty post-apocalyptic vision which follows through with the shocks in many places that Hollywood wouldn't dare. The opening sequence, in which Cillian Murphy's sole survivor aimlessly wanders through an evacuated London, is especially noteworthy and one of the eeriest moments in a film I've seen in a long time. Although we all know that Boyle achieved his aim by filming early and closing off areas of the city, it works perfectly and nicely sets up the following events which take place in darker, cheaper sets and locations. Shooting on digital video gives the film an added edge of gritty realism especially during the in-your-face zombie attacks.
I say zombie because this film is, by all accounts, a straightforward zombie film. The survivors may still be alive but any thought processes are dead and they still attack as ferociously as any of Romero's creations. Boyle gives us some very dark and graphic violence in such attacks, full of sickening spraying blood and chopped limbs shown in quick disturbing flashes. For once the camera doesn't cut away and we're left feeling pretty queasy about it all. But things get worse before they get better, with a climax involving gouged eyes and even worse things happening. One of the problems that this film has is that its extremely bleak and heavy going (at least until the tacked-on ending) and thus may well be off-putting to many viewers who can't stand the too-realistic narrative, which has no time for Hollywood sentimentality.
The acting ranges from the solid to the less than impressive, the latter in the case of Megan Burns as the young Hannah. Young child actors are always unwise decisions in adult-orientated films such as this and Burns doesn't quite gel in her role as the unlucky youth. On the other hand, there are some nicely dependable supporting performances, including Naomie Harris as the self-sufficient ex-chemist now turned survivalist, who has brutal ways of dealing with the infected. Brendan Gleeson steals the film with his performance as the warm-hearted father but unfortunately he gets all too little screen time. I have mixed feelings about Cillian Murphy, the relative Irish newcomer who takes the lead. His performance is definitely spot on in places but not at all charismatic, therefore we are unable to identify with him throughout the movie and especially during the gruesome climax.
The latter half of the film turns into an open reworking of Romero's classic DAY OF THE DEAD, complete with a chained-up zombie a la Bub and an isolated bunch of soldiers led by a madman – this time played by Christopher Eccleston, giving some gravitas to the proceedings. Although the playout is fairly predictable, there are plenty of scary things going on in the climatic thunderstorm, making for uncomfortable viewing and a fair few jump-in-your-seat shocks for nervous audience goers. As the film generally works as a whole (despite the abundance of ups and downs) I consider it to be a success, although as I mentioned before definitely not to everybody's taste.